When it comes to home servers, Linux is king. It’s free, it’s efficient, and the possibilities are endless! Join us as we go through the many ways to keep your open-source server streaming and serving up stuff for you.

First and Foremost: Remote Access

If you’re running Linux, then odds are that remote access from anywhere is first in your mind. For that reason, let’s start with the obvious:

You can use your Linux server as a network-accessible Windows share by installing Samba. You may want to add users so everyone can access their own individual shares as well. Once you’ve got things configured, it’ll make for easy access for streaming to other computers in your network.

Streaming Media

Streaming all of your music and movies is a great way to utilize your desk-tethered Linux PC. PS3MediaServer can serve your movies and TV shows to your big screen via your PlayStation3. If you’re using a simpler setup, like using a Linux-based HTPC to stream from another computer, you can tweak VLC to fix any lagging or skipping issues you might have.

If iOS and/or Android is your client of choice, Plex Media Server will automagically convert your media and stream it without hassle. If push comes to shove and you really love Air Video, I’ll let you in on a little secret: you can run it in WINE with relatively little fuss. You can check out our guide to running Spotify in Ubuntu 9.10 since the process is substantially the same. If you’re on Android, you can get Air Video’s features for free using VLC Shares and some tweaking.

Serving Up Webpages

One of the most common ways Linux geeks choose to put their systems to work is with a LAMP setup – Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Apache is the big boy in serving up webpages, MySQL handles all of the database requirements for various webapps you might want to install, and PHP takes care of the rest. Check out our guide for an easy setup that includes a few tools to help manage things.

On the other hand, if you decided to run a LAMP server in a virtual machine – not a bad idea since the requirements are low and you can easily migrate the VM – you should check out our Wiki page on Tweaking a Dedicated Virtual Web Server. You’ll find quite a few changes you can make to fit your particular set up there.

You can use your home computer to securely sync files with your Android device. We’ve covered plenty, but if you want more streaming ideas, be sure to check out the results of our reader poll on the matter. If you’re running into load problems on your Linux server and want to troubleshoot, we know of a script that can help you out. And, if you need to upgrade or reinstall your OS, don’t forget to backup your important files.